A Bridge to Treachery From Extortion to Terror

by Larry Crane

  “I’m home free right now.”

  “Think about it.”

  “I gave it a minute.”

  “Think some more.”

  Stanfield moved over closer on the front seat and rapped Lou’s thigh with the back of his hand. “Louis, tomorrow you’ll be at a briefing on the operation. We’ll be sitting right here at six o’clock. We’ll go in our car and leave yours here.”

  Facing straight ahead with his eyes fixed on the streaks of rain piercing the arc of the overhead lights outside, Lou heard them open the doors and slide out. He sat still in the car for a long time after the red smear of their taillights melted to black. The rain fell steadily, coursing down the windshield. The scarlet lights of the Firelight Brazier across the way wavered in front of him like a bonfire.

  Lou had no clear impression, no lasting memory of anything they’d said. At the end, he’d sat silently, his hands retreating to his lap, fists clenched. You sorry bastard. You never said no.

  DETROIT—Continuing his emphasis on traditionally conservative themes, the president last night delivered a slashing assault on what he termed, “the encrusted liberal bench,” accusing the judicial establishment of being responsible for an “epidemic of lawlessness.” Mr. Bliss promised that if reelected he would convene a blue ribbon panel of leading law and order experts to recommend ways to put an end to “pussyfooting with known criminals.” Once again, the president’s remarks are generally viewed as a desperate attempt to stave off defeat at the polls, only a week away.

  Chapter Ten

  So, Patricia Buck played the card. Such a puny card. Two whelps out of the rain, talking big about paramilitary operations. It was crass. It was small. Tantamount to a full bird colonel in the Army sending a couple of buck privates out to the motor pool to ask the warrant officer in charge to please roll his fucking jeep around to the front door, pronto. Patricia Buck, big cheese. He’d expected a whole lot more.

  So much for the rebirth of his fine little theorem, the one about hard work makes success. It was back to the truth he knew when he drove out the gate of Fort Dix for the last time, when he saw the world as being run by mean little people doing nasty little things. No sense of an organization with a code—only the rustling of invisible critters looking out for themselves. He felt more comfortable in a world where he was part of something, even if it was all olive drab.

  But he could handle this. They’d come to his ground with this paramilitary context, away from their source of power, over to his.

  At home with Mag, he was full of small talk and joviality: a good act. Mag fell asleep on the couch in front of the TV. By ten o’clock, he was staring blankly at the screen, thinking that Mag had seen right through him and had decided to file it away under crazy behavior of an increasingly crazy man.

  He stood up and arched his shoulders to shed a deep ache that had settled in the base of his neck. He jostled Mag, and they shuffled off to bed like a thousand other nights. But sleep didn’t come. About one o’clock, he grunted as Mag turned over and mumbled a goodnight into her pillow.

  “Mag,” he said, snuggling up to her back.

  “Hmm?”

  “Something weird happened.”

  “What was it?” she murmured.

  For a long while, he didn’t answer. He just stared into the blackness of the room. “I’ll tell you in the morning.”

  “Lou?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “What was it?”

  “Go to sleep.”

  “Come on.”

  “It was something somebody said. It’s too involved to tell you now.”

  “You sure?”

  “Go to sleep.”

  * * *

  That evening, the nightmare came again, back four years and six months to Germany and his brigade, to the banks of the Donau. Snow, enveloped in the throaty sound of armored vehicles and the smell of exhaust fumes, swirled all around him. FX Taro Leaf, the 24th Infantry Division, was in full field exercise, the entire division moving out through the gates of their kasernen in Munich and Augsburg, out into the towns and the fields of Bavaria.

  Lou’s jeep glided noiselessly over the snow-covered road; from far off in the opposite direction, he watched the approach of Hank Readfield, the Division Commander. They slid to a stop, side by side.

  “Listen Lou,” Readfield shouted. “We have General Avery from USAREUR with us now. He’s come down to observe.”

  “Great,” Lou said. “Great, Hank.”

  “Yeah, so far it’s going fine, Lou. Thanks to your boundless, friggin’ energy. I want you to know that I got word they’ve appointed a general officer selection committee. With Taro Leaf under your belt, it’s looking good for you. I’ll be proud to pin the goddamn stars on you myself.”

  Suddenly the jeep seemed to rise up off the road and to float somewhere close to the treetops. A warmth he’d never felt before coursed through his veins, and he luxuriated in it. Brigadier General Louis Christopher!

  He saw the parade field at Reese Kaserne with the entire brigade assembled—his brigade, that he’d transformed into a finely tuned instrument. Readfield and Avery were there. They were all there to confirm his reputation as the master of the tactical river crossing—a reputation earned in a series of successful crossings of the Donau in winter, summer, day, and night, and in the ultimate: the full scale, division assault of FX Taro Leaf, with his brigade first out of the blocks. With all of that, what could possibly go wrong?

  But now with his jeep in the icy mud and him standing on the banks of the surging Donau River, the shouting of his S-3, Major William Peters, intruded.

  “No crossing, sir!”

  “What do you mean, no crossing, Bill?”

  “They said for safety reasons, we’ll just simulate, sir,” Peters shouted.

  “What safety reasons, major?”

  “Ice, sir. They don’t want to take any chances.”

  “Listen to me, Bill. This is the top of the mountain for this brigade. We’ve got a USAEUR commander watching.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Bill, I’m thinking you didn’t get to me on time with that order. You could hardly see the road. Slipped into the ditch somewhere between division headquarters and here.”

  “It’s not worth it, sir.

  “Get lost, Bill.”

  The first M-113 Armored Personnel Carrier, from A-Company of the First Battalion, Nineteenth Infantry appeared with red headed, Spec. Four Arthur Pender’s grinning face disappearing as his driver’s hatch door slammed, rolled to the bank, teetered for a second, and then plunged into the water. The track submerged fully; and for a breathless ten seconds, was entirely gone from sight. Moments later, it bobbed triumphantly to the surface and scuttled away through the swirling snow.

  For an instant, Lou wanted to run to the bank of the Donau: to wave off the rest of the company; to summon Pender back to safety, out of the ice, like a movie running in reverse. It was only a drill, after all—not war, not life and death, nothing to risk a hair for. But his feet stuck firm to the ground as he watched the rest go in; one, after another, after another. His voice froze in his throat and he was unable to cry out: “Come back! Come back, all you men!”

  Then the brigade XO’s voice was in his ear: “Sir, the first track never made it across. They went down, sir.”

  Oh, bloody Jesus, Lou!

  He saw himself dressed in full field gear, churning his legs in the freezing mud of the riverbank, running down the Donau in the direction of the current, dropping his helmet and stripping off his web belt, gloves, and parka. Pender’s M-113, the first one, the one that so confidently breached the water, bobbed powerless in the middle of the swirling mass of ice and debris, only a corner of its hull—a small steel, olive-colored pyramid—visible.

  He seemed to hang in the air above the water for minutes, arms flailing, before his boots pierced the icy surface and the cruelly cold river seized his muscles. He screamed something, not words, into the sky and began
to swim with every fleck of energy that hadn’t yet been sucked from his body. In seconds, he grabbed at the machine gun mount on the cupola. He dove and swam to the rear hatch, surfaced breathless, ducked again, and grabbed the release handle on the hatch. It sprang open and the eight men inside came streaming out like a stick of paratroopers.

  Back in the jeep, warm and dry, he glided through the gate of Flak Kaserne, as the radio report droned in his ears: eight GIs down in the Donau. No one hurt. Disaster averted by pure dumb luck.

  Later, he stood in the office waiting to meet with Hank Readfield; his eyes unfocused, his brain numb, until he saw Major William Peters exit the office and depart without a word.

  “Reporting as ordered, sir. Goddamn it.”

  “I’ve had you in my command for the last ten years. Watched you grow. You didn’t need me, didn’t need anyone. Maggie, Pete, Oliver. You had it all.”

  “I don’t make excuses, Hank.”

  “Why, Lou? Just tell me why you did it.”

  “Why? How many chances does a guy get in a lifetime?”

  “All for one lousy river crossing.”

  “My specialty. My baby.”

  “You’re the best troop commander I ever had,” Readfield says.

  “You’ve had your chance, Hank. This was mine. Nobody got hurt.”

  “I had you figured out a long time ago, Lou, on a stretcher on the chopper pad at Plieku, the first time you disobeyed orders. But everybody deserves a second shot. You got yours, and you got a good long run out of it.”

  Readfield rose and turned his back on Lou. “I’m sending you back stateside, Lou. I’m sorry, but what you want, you want too much. Now, get out of here.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The call from Westover came early. Lou was upstairs in the lounge with a cup of coffee. Suzy rang and told him that Barry was on the line. Lou took his time getting down to the desk. Westover was cheery. Nothing he said betrayed any change in the relationship. It was a sale of 300 IBM and a purchase of 2000 Jim Walter Corp with the proceeds; small potatoes compared to other days, but still a nice trade.

  It crossed Lou’s mind that this was part of it, the small order. It was deliberate, a tidbit to test him, not so much that he would feel guilty, just a morsel, easy to take, easy going down, but a commitment all the same. They knew he’d interpret it as a decision to take another step. Maybe it was all of that. Maybe it wasn’t.

  If he was so sure he could handle them, why hesitate? Let it happen, right? But he knew no real details of what they were talking about. He let the execution tickets lay on his desk for half the morning.

  He still hadn’t executed the order, hadn’t gone along, but what choice was there? Put someone else’s number on the tickets and send them in? Ignore the order? It could all be as easy as they’d made it out to be, couldn’t it? A paramilitary operation, probably with squirt guns. No one said it was anything more. So he goes along, and puts in the two days, and nothing really happens. He’s in and out, and it’s all over.

  And from then on, there’s the account; no more cold calls and sweating out the next month. There was still the chance that it would all just evaporate. Maybe he’d misunderstood them. He stood for a long time before the glass panel of his office, mesmerized by the ticker numbers sliding across the wall in the front of the room.

  He walked to the pneumatic tube station, crammed the tickets home, pushed hard on the button, and then all the indecision vanished. Whoosh! It was done.

  The bogus relief didn’t last long. He’d gone up to the lounge to grab another cup of coffee, but before he’d even carried it back to his desk, he felt the grip of panic rising in his throat. He was kidding himself if he thought the situation was just going to evaporate. They had meant every word. He had tacitly taken the first step in their direction on his own. His first act of free will in the matter was on the record. Now he wanted to take it back.

  He jogged lightly over the carpet of the board room, flushing at the odd glances coming from the tape watchers. He leaned in the cashier’s window and caught the attention of the LAN gal.

  “Peggy! Is the system up and running right?”

  Unperturbed, Peggy looked up from her keyboard, tapped a couple of keys, and then said, “You’re okay. Three hundred IBM, 2000 JWC?”

  “That’s mine.” He winced.

  “Something wrong with the order, Lou? Give me a ticket and I’ll cancel.”

  “Naw, it’s too late. Let it go,” he said, turning away. It didn’t have to mean that he was going along, not yet. He knew what he had to do. Patricia Buck was on the ground floor of it all. He had to go right at her. Terri Garr, in New York, answered on the second ring.

  “Yes, this is Lou Christopher out in Paramus. Is she there?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Christopher. Ms. Buck is completely occupied by the weekly investment committee meeting. If it’s really important.”

  “No, never mind. I’ll call back.”

  “She should be available sometime close to the end of the day.”

  Surprisingly, the rest of the day was fairly busy. Hal Grossbeek actually called and opened an account. Lou had been calling him for six months after Grossbeek returned a mailer, asking for information about municipal bonds. The bonds weren’t really what he was interested in, though. It turned out to be the cheapies, the less than ten-dollar stocks that he could sink all of his twenty-five hundred into all at once. He’d put in an order for 200 Humanistic Systems and got a price of nine and three-quarters.

  Lou made a couple of calls on a lucrative secondary. Late in the day, two of his old accounts called back and signed on for 100 shares each.

  After the close, around 4:30, Sherm Wellington’s sister, Janice, came into the office and sat down in Lou’s side chair. She’d brought the payment for her latest purchase. She had been one of his first accounts, thanks to Sherm, and actually turned out to be one of his better customers.

  She always came into the office with cash for her transactions. And every time she came in, they’d sit and talk about everything but the stock market. He’d had a little trouble getting used to the relationship with her. He didn’t like being involved with a friend’s finances. And he felt in his guts the same way about her as he felt about Patricia Buck: there would always be a fundamental lack of understanding between them.

  He’d gradually tried to overcome his unease with Janice as he got to know her and came to understand that her account was just Sherm’s toy anyway. Janice couldn’t have cared less what happened to it.

  They engaged in small talk. She’d been to the club with the ladies and finished a round of golf just before coming over. She wasn’t worth a damn on the links, but she liked getting out in the sun. It was absurd, but as he sat there talking to Sherm’s sister, Lou was only half concentrating on what she was saying. The thought had entered his mind that Sherm might be playing games with him again. It was just like Sherm to conceive of practical jokes, elaborate beyond any hapless dupe’s imagination. Lou could imagine him at the kitchen table with Virg, plotting this silly military thing, calling friends, enlisting them in the scheme.

  Yes, Sherm would do this. After all, why had Janice come in today of all days? Was she here to see how he was reacting? Sherm liked to give everyone a part in his schemes. Lou searched Janice’s face for a smirk, an evasive glance, but found nothing. Naw, it was a stupid thought.

  Now she had to go. Lou walked with her over to the door and, as she exited, glanced at the spot in the parking lot, under the mercury lamp, where he’d parked the Lexus. No other car was around.

  Back in his office, Lou picked up the phone. “Lou? This is Patricia Buck. Winnie told me you had something on your mind.”

  “Oh hi, Patricia! I was going to call you back. I called earlier.”

  “Yes, Winnie told me.”

  “The account seems to be working out well from this end. Barry seems well pleased. I...”

  “Yes, Louis, that’s fine. I knew you’d handle it
perfectly.”

  “Uh, I guess I was just wondering if maybe there was something more about the account that you could pass on to me.”

  “No, everything’s just fine so far. I’ve been watching the stats from the branch and I’ve noticed that the account is having quite an effect down there. I’d say it’s probably made things a little easier for you and Calvin, both.” He could almost see the flash in Patricia’s eye.

  “Oh, it’s been real fine,” Lou said.